TMNT: Affirmation
by tmntpunx
Summary: 2k3 show verse - SAINW. By the time Renet whisks Michelangelo away from the war torn world he has somehow managed to survive, he is not the man she remembers. But together, he might just be able to rediscover who he once was - and how much he still loves her.


Michelangelo blinked. He focused weary eyes, and a canopy of lush green leaves and twisting branches materialized above him. Something darted through the foliage above, shaking loose the rain that had collected on the broad, waxy leaves crowning the trees. He jerked back instinctively, but he was too slow. A drop of water landed on his brow, and his one god hand shot up in an attempt to intercept it before it rolled down his face.

But as he pulled his hand away he realized - it didn't burn.

His eyes darted up from beneath the tattered orange bandana that covered his head, but he could not see the sky beyond the trees. There was dirt between his toes; wet and warm from the moisture in the air.

"Where the hell am I?" He said, though he was alone. Life at the end of the world did strange things to the ones that survived. Michelangelo had been talking to himself for years.

"Do you really want to know?"

She stood at the edge of the clearing, in a short tunic the color of her eyes. _Those eyes_. His breath caught in his chest. He could have suffered a thousand lifetimes without seeing her again, and he still would have remembered those eyes.

"Renet."

She ran her fingers through damp, flaxen hair. "I always liked the not knowing." The timestress smiled at him. "Makes things more fun, don't you think?"

There was no gray in her golden hair. There were no lines around her sapphire eyes. She had not changed; she was just as perfect as Michelangelo remembered. Suddenly, he felt more self conscious about his stub of an arm than he had in years. His remaining three fingers instinctively drifted to where it ended, to the metal plate that marked where the rest of his arm should have been.

"I'm sorry," the smile on her face was sad, now. "I should have come for you sooner."

"You can't be real," Michelangelo said in disbelief. "This - this can't be real."

"Oh this is very real, Mikey." Renet shrugged, and golden hair swept across her shoulders. She shrugged, as if it was nothing. As if the impossible journey through space, and time, and everything, was nothing at all. No big deal. "I could pinch you, if you'd like."

"It's Michelangelo, now," he said, a little awkwardly. It had been years since anyone had called him by that name. It had been even longer since he had been Mikey.

Renet blinked; cocked her head to the side in confusion. And then she smiled again. "Michelangelo." She said his name slowly, full, pink lips lingering on every syllable. She was rolling his name over with her tongue, the way the ocean rolled glass in its waves until it became soft. It made Michelangelo uncomfortable, the way the playboys under Raphael's bed did when they were young. That nervous, aching, longing.

"Wanna go to the black sand beach?" She chirped. "It's just a few minutes, um," she paused, turned around, then pointed off into the forest. "That way."

"No. I want to go back." Michelangelo shook his head. "I have to go back."

"What?" She laughed at his words; too ludicrous to be serious. He had never been serious, before. It had to be a joke. Her laugh was beautiful, and it had been so long since he had heard anything that was beautiful.

"Renet, please," he reached out to her with his remaining hand. "You have to take me back."

"Oh." She stopped laughing. Crossed her arms over her chest. "Absolutely not."

His mind raced. April. The rest of the rebels. What would happen to them, if the Shredder attacked? The legion bots...He shook his head, refusing to finish that thought. He had to be there. For her. He had to be there for her, when everyone else had fallen away. He would not abandon her, like they had. "I can't stay here." The turtle implored. "You know I can't."

"I won't take you back to that horrible place, Michelangelo." She had never sounded so serious. But then she smiled. "Come on. The black sand is beautiful. Most beautiful thing you've ever seen."

The turtle's hand curled into a fist. "I can't."

"Come on, Michelangelo." She cocked a hip, gave him an impish grin. "It'll be fun."

His heart thundered beneath his plastron. He could feel his heart rate building, blood burning beneath his skin. His breath heaved in his really hadn't changed. But he had. "NO!" Michelangelo snapped. His outburst echoed through the clearing, reverberating through the beautiful, lonely place she had brought him to.

She looked like he had lanced her through the heart. _What the hell did she expect?_ Michelangelo exhaled miserably. _That she was going to whisk me away - that everything would be fine?_ He looked at the ground, and told himself it was because the sun was in his eyes, not because he couldn't bring himself to look at her.

"There's something wrong with your time, you know," she said, cutting through the quiet that was cacophonous with all the living, breathing, growing things that surrounded them. "Maybe that's why you're...like this, Mike- Michelangelo," she frowned as she corrected herself. "The fabric, it's, just, like, fucked. Ripped! Like, like, something's missing!" He glanced up to see her gesticulating wildly, scrunching her hands, groping for the words to explain something she herself did not even understand. "I tried to come for you. I _tried_!" She inhaled sharply, stymieing what he could only assuming was an impending deluge of emotion. But she did not cry. She just closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were so cold that it hurt him to look at her.

So they stood in silence. Scars and soft skin golden under what was left of the sun spilling through the branches of the trees.

"Before I found you, I found the end," she said, her voice quiet. "And I saw things." She closed her eyes. " _Horrible_ things." Her beautiful face collapsed in despair. "And that's why I can never take you back. So please, _please -_ " she met his gaze again. "Don't ask me to take you back."

He did not know what to say. So he said her name. He pleaded. Be begged. He begged like he hadn't begged for anything before, and she just stood there, blue eyes dark and unwavering as a starless night sky. _This is so like her_ , he thought between the edge of fury and desperation. _All good intentions and shit execution. Always has been._ But he had to make her understand.

"Renet, please -" he continued, raking his hand across his face, tugging at his bandana.

"I said not to ask me again," she said, simply, turning from him. Her feet sank gently into the warm, wet earth as she began to walk away. "When you're ready, you know where to find me."

"Renet!"

"It's for your own good!" He heard her shouting, crashing through the trees as she disappeared down the slope. "I promise!"

Then Michelangelo was alone again. His heart was still pounding in his chest. His eyes darted to the edge of the clearing where she had stood just moments ago, and he called her name. She did not answer. Heart thundering in his ears in a storm he was helpless to stop, he spun on his heel and slammed his fist into the trunk of a tree.

Something cried out up above him, and a flock of birds burst forth from the trees. He could hear them calling, above the beating of his heart. And for an instant, he was in awe. _This place is so alive._ He did not know if he had said the words aloud, or simply thought them. But it was true. This was not the husk of a planet that Shredder had left behind. This Earth was not the dessicated, lifeless place he knew. It was like a photo spread in one of Donatello's old, coffee stained National Geographics. Too beautiful to be real.

Michelangelo took a deep breath, trying to still his heaving chest. How many nights had he dreamed of her, coming to take him away from the living nightmare their world had become? And now she had. But still, he knew he could not stay.

The turtle followed her footprints in the dirt, tracking her path through the forest. Though she hardly had a head start, she was still nowhere to be found on the slope. Something sang out from the trees, and Michelangelo began to run. He lept over a fallen log, landing hard. As the incline became steeper, his pace became quicker.

His feet hit the dirt hard as he picked up speed, smearing the trail of foot prints she had left behind in the warm, soft earth. His heart beating harder, he ran to her.

He could hear the ocean before he could see it. It was roaring in the distance; somewhere beyond the trees.

Trees became bamboo, and bamboo waned into sand black as midnight. The sky was red over the sea. He could see her, not far from the rocks below. She was sitting at the edge of the earth, where the water met the sand. He wanted to run to her, to let his feet hit the sand, heart pounding in his chest. But he paused.

The beach scrawled on as far as he could see. Michelangelo shifted his weight, lingering at the edge of the forest. It was too exposed. Too unsafe. But there she sat, her back to the world. As if it didn't even exist. Like nothing could touch her.

Michelangelo took short, terse steps over the sand, muscles tense, straining to hear anything unseen over the sound of the ocean coming up over the sand. It was an exercise in futility, but he would have felt remiss if he hadn't at least tried. He had raced through enough mindfields to know better. But Renet was just sitting there, staring at the sea.

His heart was beating hard in his chest when he sat beside her. She did not look at him. He didn't want her to. There was something soothing about the place she had chosen for them. It wasn't the sound of the ocean. Or the silence that filled the air, after the waves retreated down the beach. It was the sand. The sand was warm from the sun. There was a part of him that wanted to close his eyes, let his head lean back. It felt so good - to be warm.

"Dig your toes in." He couldn't see her face, but he knew she was smiling.

"I'm sorry," he realized he had dug his toes into the sand, and yanked them out. Brushed them off. "I know you're just trying to help, Renet. Really, I do. But I don't have time -"

"We have all the time there ever was," she said. "Or ever will be."

White foam rolled over black sand.

He wondered where April was, now. If she was suffering a long, agonizing death at the hands of the Shredder, or if she had been dead for a thousand years. Or if it was all happening at once. Another wave rolled in, and white fingers of the sea curled around his toes. He wondered if she even knew he was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the breeze stir Renet's hair around her shoulders. She was still so young and beautiful. He was so old. Hard. His face was lined by the years of loneliness, and long nights, wondering where his brothers were. Wondering if they would ever come home. Those long nights had left hard lines around his eyes, like scars; tally marks of years survived.

Michelangelo watched as she arched her back, opening up to the fading light. Like a morning glory. He leaned back on his arm, and watched her, and she let him bask in her light.

He was wrong about her. She had changed. He almost smiled. The curve of her hips was more pronounced. The sharp lines of her clavicles across her chest had softened. She was older, now. Not as old as he was, but she was older. Time suited her.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She asked, her voice barely louder than the sound of the waves rolling in over the sand.

"Not as beautiful as you." Michelangelo said, without thinking. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he felt the heat surge up in his face. After all these years, she still made him blush like the boy he had all but forgotten. In the split second she caught him looking at her (thinking about her), it was like he was Mikey, not Michelangelo.

When he was Mikey, he wouldn't have given those words a second thought. They would have come out as easily as a laugh, or a smile. Life at the end of the world was too hard and too long for kind words and stolen smiles. Or hope. He had stopped hoping that he would see her again, but he had not stopped dreaming of her. But in his dreams, he was still whole.

"When are we?" Michelangelo looked away, staring off to the place where the sky met the sea.

"The beginning." Renet shrugged. "Or the end." Her eyes were on the horizon too, watching the sky bleed red into the deep blue. "Time gets a little fuzzy at the polarities."

"So, uh," the turtle leaned back, digging his shell into the soft black sand beneath him. "Do I need to be worried about bugs the size of city buses, or what?"

"No." She laughed, and the golden halo of hair shook around her shoulders. She took her eyes of the horizon, and her gaze fell upon his face. Her eyes were cool and calm, like the waves at their feet. "Here. Now. It's just you and me."

He smiled at her, then. And she smiled, too. "There you are," she said, softly. "Michelangelo."

She said his name like she was speaking to the artist his father had named him after, not the hardened, broken thing he had become, with all his frayed edges and abrupt endings. He wondered if she had ever met him; the real Michelangelo. She could go anywhere. Any time. But she had chosen to be here, now. With him.

A wave came up, hard and fast. Michelangelo didn't see it, but he tasted the salt in his mouth. Water swept up over him, knocking him on his shell, rushing over his face, filling his nose. He kicked his legs, struggling to right himself, and went nowhere. The wet sand sucked at his feet. The wave dragged him down the beach.

The wave fell back, and he lurched forward. When he managed to sit up, wiping the burning salt from his eyes, his breath caught in his chest. "Renet!"

She was by the black rocks, face down in the sand.

Michelangelo ran, the wet beach still sucking at his feet; weighing him down, holding him back. He forced himself to keep moving. Sand spat up behind him, biting his heels. He fell to his knees beside her, shoved her onto her back, his heart screaming inside him. He choked out her name again and again, until -

She heard him. When she blinked up at him, his body sagged in relief above hers. The timestress coughed, gagged, spit.

"You ok?" His breath was ragged, as if he had run for miles instead of taken just a few short strides across the sand. She nodded, and he hoisted her up. He yanked his wet bandana from his face, tenderly dabbed away the sand on her face.

And then she began to laugh. Michelangelo blinked. She was losing it. She must have hit her head. His heart began to race again. He ran his hand over her head, checking for lumps, gouges - any sign of trauma.

"Isn't it amazing?" She smiled.

Without thinking, he pulled her in close. There was still sand on her cheeks. She was still going on about how amazing it all was; life, the universe, and everything. He didn't know what she was talking about. But then again, he never did. All he knew was that in that when she was face down in the sand, he was more afraid of losing her than he had been of anything else since she had brought him to this place.

He sighed. "I'm just glad you're ok," he slumped against her, and rested his head in the crook of her neck.

She chuckled, cradled his head in her hand. "So stoic."

Arm entwined around her waist, he pulled her closer. She settled in against him, and another wave spilled across the sand. The nagging need to fall back, to retreat to somewhere safe tapped impatiently at the back of his mind, but his body would not move. He didn't want to let her go; he didn't want to lose her again. The last time, he blinked, and she was gone. Like his brother before her.

The sun hung low over the sea, washing the waves with gold. And they stood there, like statues, the fabric of her tunic wet, rippling over her thighs, like those marble statues in Splinter's art history books.

Michelangelo cringed. Her hands were on his arms, gentle fingers on his scars.

"What's wrong?" Her hands drifted away.

"Why did you come back for me," he closed his eyes, trying not to think about the deep gouges that lined his legs, and his arms. "When I'm like this?" His voice faltered.

"Because I promised you I would."

How long had it been since the last time - the first time - with her? Decades? A millennia? Michelangelo didn't know. Maybe a hundred generations had lived and died since the last time he saw her face, when she had made him that impossible promise.

His hand drifted over her thigh, where the edge of her tunic clung to the curve of her ass, and she pulled him down to the sand. Her hand was on his face, gently cupping his cheek; tracing the line of his jaw. Her skin was so soft. It wasn't calloused, or hard, or dry. It was soft, and sweet. Like her. As she leaned in closer, her hair fell around his face. It smelled like the sea. And when she kissed him, it was just like he dreamed it would be.

He would have waited another thousand years just to kiss her again.

And then she rocked back across the base of his plastron, reaching back, between his thighs, gently encircling the softness of his tail between her thumb and forefinger. Her other hand was on his neck, drawing him back to her. He kissed her, her wet hair between his fingers. Michelangelo shifted his weight against the sand, feeling himself harden against her.

He was getting slick in her hand. His head spun, caught in the riptide of his longing, how overwhelming it all was; the way she smelled, and felt. The way she was. He struggled to raise himself up on one elbow before he surrendered to her, and her touch, and the heat of her skin. Michelangelo sunk back against the black sand, pulling her down on top of him, his hand fervently tugging her tunic down over her shoulder. He wrestled with the wet fabric that clung so ardently to her curves, concealing nothing.

"Dammit," he growled in frustration. Impatience.

"It's ok," she said, gently, peeling the wet thing off herself.

She threw a leg over him, smiling. His cock throbbed between her thighs. He ran his hand up her hip, over the soft, yielding flesh of her breasts. She leaned back above him - electric perfection at the end of the world. When he thought all the light in the world had gone out, there she was.

Michelangelo touched her face, and she smiled at him; drew his hand down herself, between her thighs. He ran a finger between her legs; he slid right over her labia, slick and wet to his touch. And then she lowered herself, slowly, gently, savoring the moment his body surrendered to her. She slid down around him, and his back arched beneath her. She was still smiling at him. The tide retreated down the beach.

Renet's hands were on his plastron, fingers tracing the lines of his body - the ones he had been born with, and the ones he had survived. It didn't matter any more. When she touched him, it was like she struck him with lightning. He could feel the electric heat coursing through him. She made him so fucking hot.

Her blue eyes flashed in the dying light, and he wanted to tell her everything. How many nights he had dreamed she would come. How many nights he had laid awake in the dark, afraid he would never see her again. But before he could speak, she lowered herself again, rising and falling like the waves at the edge of the world, and nothing else mattered.

She rode him, slipping down the length of his cock again and again until they came. His orgasm crashed over him, rolling through his entire being - blissful and warm. Radiant. And in that moment, with her, he felt whole.

Down the beach, the ocean roared, only to spill gently over the sand.

The sun went down, and the moon came up, though they could not see it. They laid under a blanket of stars, brighter than anything he had ever seen. Brighter than the stars above the farm house in Northampton, away from the city. Away from everything. He wondered if it was still there. Or if it would be there, a hundred million years from now.

Her back was against his plastron, and her skin was warm against his scars. "It could be like this. Always." She tipped her head back against his chest. Smiled at him. "All you have to do is stay."

There was something he wanted to say, but he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead, he allowed himself to smile. He kissed the crown of her head. But Michelangelo couldn't say it, because he knew. If she knew he wanted to stay - she would never let him go.

 **A/N:** _This was a fun one; a much needed change of pace one shot after working on a single ongoing story for so damn long. I am so PUMPED for Renet's appearance in TMNT 2012! I really wanted to play with a Renet who was a little bit bratty, and entirely in love with being alive. Somber SAINW Mikey was fun, too. Poor dear needs all the love he can get. Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed!_


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